1/29/13

This Basketball Widow ran through 1 Million In Ten Months!




How can a Basketball Widow spend 1 Million in 10 Months? She’ll tell you how!
One basketball widow's draw-dropping tales of excess could have cost her four kids their future financial stability now that it's been disclosed that she spent $1M in less than a year.

Former NBA player Lorenzen Wright signed a $1 Million life insurance policy in 2010 after before he filed for divorce from Sherra Wright, hoping that his kids would be taken care of if he died. Unfortunately....he was found dead five months after the policy went into effect.  Interesting timing.
Now you might think Sherra would save money for her kids' college funds or perhaps save some of the $1M for the future....but no. She didn't. In fact, reports by commercialappeal.com say most of the money was gone within 10 months.

So how do you spend away your kid's future and dead ex-husband's legacy?  Here's some of the expenses:
$26,000 on a Lexus
$32,000 on a Cadillac Escalade
$69,000 on furniture
$11,750 for a trip to New York
$339,000 to buy a new home and renovate
$7,000 on a pool
$5,000 for lawn equipment
$34,000 on lawyers

At issue, other family members contend, is that the proceeds were designated to support the couple's six children. The spending report, filed in September but only just now disclosed publicly, caused a judge to begin investigation of the living conditions of Wright's children. The judge also routed other money, the NBA's $184,000 in death benefits, to Lorenzen Wright's father Herb to benefit the children. Those assets are, at present, frozen.
However, Sherra Wright says the family remains financially sound, with $1.4 million in "assets on hand." Much of that is tied up in the new house and three Arkansas investment properties.
There is also significant discord, according to the court filings, between Herb Wright and Sherra Wright, who "testified Lorenzen Wright distrusted his father and as a result removed his father from any control over his accounts and finances."

At the time of his death, Wright was operating under a child support order requiring him to pay $16,650 a month in child support and another $10,000 a month in alimony, for a total of $319,000 a year. That plan was concocted in 2009, in what would be the last year of Wright's NBA career. There was no amended plan filed after Wright left the NBA and his income dramatically declined.

It's tough to overstate the tragedy of Wright's fall. After Anfernee Hardaway, he was easily the most celebrated player in the basketball-rich city of Memphis. Like Hardaway, he was a high school legend turned Memphis Tiger, and like Hardaway he led the Tigers to the NCAA tournament and later became a lottery pick. He was never able to make a significant impact in the pros, though with $55 million in career earnings, "significant" is by definition a relative term. He deserved better than his tragic end, and the fact that acrimony from his passing continues to tear his family apart is an ongoing shame.

Well....we hope they took pictures and still have their memories.

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